02 



Report upon New or Rare Plants, 8?c. 



XVI. Gesneria Douglasii. 



G. herbacea; radice tuberosa, foliis in medio caulis verticillatis petiolatis 

 ovatis crenatis, cyma terminali umbellata pedunculata, corollse limbo subsequali, 

 glandulis duabus superioribus dilatatis : inferioribus obliterans. 



A beautiful herbaceous plant, with a fleshy tuberous root, 

 sent to the Society from Rio Janeiro by Mr. David Douglas 

 in 1825. The specific name it has received, is a tribute 

 to the merit of that indefatigable and intelligent collector. 

 It flowers in the stove during almost all the summer, requires 

 to be cultivated in a moderately light sandy soil, and is pro- 

 pagated with some difficulty by the leaves. 



From a fleshy roundish root rise two or three purple downy 

 stems, which are naked, and incrassated at the base, and 

 crowned about six inches from the ground with a whorl of 

 five, six, or seven, stalked, spreading, ovate, serrate-crenate, 

 ciliated leaves, which are downy, with a fine gloss on each 

 side. From the centre of these leaves is produced a purple 

 downy peduncle, rather longer than the stem, bearing a large, 

 umbellate, many-flowered cyme. At the base of each ray 

 of this cyme, is a subulate bractea. Pedicels round, long, 

 slender, smooth and shining. Calyx inferior, with a five-parted 

 limb and ovate, nearly equal, short segments. Corolla tubular, 

 half an inch long, fleshy and gibbous at the base, rather downy, 

 of a pale pink colour, striped and bordered with numerous 

 blood-red, interrupted, or continuous spots ; its limb is crisp 

 and nearly erect, the upper lip two-lobed, with rounded, im- 

 bricated lobes, the lower three-lobed, with equal, ovate, 

 obtuse segments, about the same size as the upper; the 

 recesses of the divisions of the limb are gibbous externally. 



